“ONTrack Media & Entertainment provides innovative entertainment solutions through quality production, repackaging, repurposing and licensing of horse racing content, which assists our racing customers in maximizing the value of their digital assets while ensuring the best in-stadium/at-home entertainment experience for the betting public” (Telephoto, 2008).
Company Background
ONTrack media and entertainment is North America’s leader in premier multinational, multimedia sports and Entertainment Company which specializes in horse racing. ONTrack has over 60 years of excellence in the horse racing industry, with portfolio of racing assets including Telephoto, ONTrack 365 and ONTrack Network. Our company services have produced over 33,000 in live horse racing game, and has provided over 10,000 photo finishes of 25% of horse race in North America (OnTrack Network).
As of August 2010, ONTrack Media and Entertainment ONTrack purchased the assets of Telephoto, which was a court ordered and managed receivership process of Telephoto Technologies Inc. and includes the purchase of customer contracts, intellectual property, television production equipment, network operations infrastructure, and other assets. Newly promoted Chief Operating Officer, Lana Taylor noted, “We are excited about the prospects going forward, especially in the Media division as we continue to grow advertising revenues over the ONTrack Network and share them with our track members.” Our headquarters are currently located in Mississauga, Ontario and is networked to hundreds of horse tracks across North America (Standardbred-Canada).
Currently our target market reflects most of upper-middle class and middle-aged citizens living in Canada and US, who builds on common interest of the horse racing industry (OnTrack Network). We hope through this community, we can make a better opportunity for better customer relations and potential future clients. Our services include TV production, VIP race graphic, OTB in a box, Video streaming, Ephoto, video replay; with TV production being our primary revenue, prices range from $ 2000 – 3000 an hour for on-air time (Telephoto).
In 2011, we are currently developing a marketing scheme which helps us develop our customer relations, as well as developing a broader market. Our plan is to use the advantages for current technology and social networking to better our existing client and potential client. Furthermore, is the incorporation for better participation through the uses of these social networks, interactive brochures, Youtube promotion video, and blogging. Finally, is the uses of peer-to-peer community and predictive modeling to help us develop this new relationship with our customers and hope to create a better image for all our clients. These include the incorporation of viral marketing, online community forums, blogging, surveying and a rating scheme. This new scheme will not only reflect on the development of our own business, but benefits the horse racing industry as a whole.
Strategic Analysis
Strengths Since ONTrack is an advertising company itself, there are numerous strengths that the company can use to benefit from possible opportunities. For instance, ONTrack knows and understands the cost of advertising, which can provide the company with advantages in negotiating the budgeting strategies with existing and potential advertisers. Also, ONTrack is one of the well-recognized companies established in the industry that specialize in advertising horse race production. Therefore, this makes ONTrack more trustworthy and compelling from clients’ point of view. This will ultimately help increase the value of the advertisement campaign. Consequently, when the audiences see the advertisement campaign, they will be more likely to click on the advertisement. These strengths will minimize the impact of threats such as false advertising and spams that are found on many websites.
Weakness In order to generate new and improved marketing strategies for the company to advance further, it is necessary for the company to recognize its weaknesses. The weaknesses associated with our company would be that our website is completely old style with absolutely no interaction, hence it is just a one-way communication website which makes it boring and it doesn’t appeal to customers. Also, there is no system of feedback provided. This makes it harder for us to infer what the customers’ value most and what exactly they might be interested in. Another weakness is that there is no other way to reach potential customers. There is a market constraint due to the slow adaptation of new technological platform. However, recognizing weaknesses of our company and knowing them alone is not good enough. ONTrack is an advertising company that advertises for other companies using traditional advertising where viewers perceive advertisement in limited places such as television on the racetrack and sport bars. As a result, this becomes a weakness for the company. However, many young adults in the present days primarily spend most of their time on the Internet. It will take some time for the company to cope with online advertising since the company has depended on traditional advertising in the past years. In order to ensure the company’s weakness will not be prevented from opportunities, the advertising campaign will help the company gain its reputation on the Internet platform through demonstrating that the company can also successfully advertise online by incorporating multimedia advertisements.
Opportunities Another essential thing we need to realize is the company’s opportunities.It is difficult to catch an opportunity when it strikes without actually realizing that there is an opportunity available. Hence it is always important to be aware of the opportunities that arise. We came across a few opportunities for the ONTrack company. Firstly it is important to reach our potential customers by expanding our market by using the many different new mediums such as social networking, interactive websites, videos, applications for mobile devices, etc. By using such methods, it is easier to target the younger population as well, which is what we are looking at doing. By targeting a younger age group (20+), there are more chances of other companies like sporting companies, beer companies and the like to offer to put their advertisement on our ONTrack Nework. There are unlimited dynamic and static advertising opportunities that ONTrack has to offer for advertisers to interact with the audience. There are countless value-added opportunities for integrated campaigns that link on-air advertisements with other promotions such as contests, cross-promotions, sampling, SMS and events. These opportunities strengthens and compliments traditional media campaigns by delivering messages and integrated programs that keep advertisers’ products and services at the top of the mind in an environment that is highly engaging, and measurable as well as highly capable of integration. It is the best of all worlds.
Threats For an advertising company like ONTrack, there could be threats that are inevitable. There are other advertising companies that we are competing with who are also trying to attract more viewers just like us. The advertising market is continually increasing, hence it is harder for us to be recognized amongst other large companies. Also, the horse racing industry is quite limited in Canada due to weather conditions and is a less popular sport as compared to others such as hockey or basketball.
Marketing Objective
The primary marketing objective of the company is to expand the current targeted market to the younger population in Canada in a one-year span. This includes the ability to reach a lower-income, less educated and yet easy to reach audience. Studies conducted by ONTrack show that approximately 55 percent of the college students are horse racing fans. In addition, college students take up 52 percent of the entire population. This shows that there is a significant potential for ONTrack to target these audiences. Subsequently, when the objective is achieved, the next goal is to reach the younger population in the US by the end of three-year duration. Thus far, the company focuses on advertisers that are interested in purchasing an advertising slot during the horse racing cycle. Further, the company only focuses on appealing the older population, people who are in their 30’s and older, as well as those who have additional income to wager horse racing for the past 50 years. Thus, this limits the company from extending to a wider range of audiences. Hence, the company is neglecting potential audience who are in the younger and middle age population ranging from 20 years old and above, which can be potentially into sport such as horse racing. By attracting the younger audiences to watch and acknowledge the ONTrack Network, the network will get more views. By increasing the number of viewers, the company can increase the price for advertisers to advertise on the network, thereby increasing our ROI (OnTrack Network, 2008).
S
Short Term Objective: Target a younger population group of at least 10,000 between the age of 20 and 35 by the end of one year.
Long Term Objective: Reach younger population in the US by the end of three-year duration.
M
attract at least 10,000 in population of age ranging from 20-35
A
current viewers of the company is 96 million viewers
The horse racing fan base increased 12.7% from 1999 to 2006 and 5% during 2006
Setting a goal to aim to gain 10,000 in population age ranging from 20-35 is relevant based on the company size and viewer population
R
10,000 viewer gain is a achievable goal through using right marketing strategies and advertising
Reaching younger population in the US is also achievable with right marketing strategies
T
Goals of 10,000 viewers gain within 1 year period
Since reaching to the US market can sometime be difficult. Thus require a little more time and planning (3 years)
Strategies and Tactics
In order to expand the current targeted market to the younger population in both Canada and US, the strategies that will be used to help achieve the company’s objective is to create an online advertising campaign in the form of contests to attract more people’s attention. The average age of ONTrack audience is usually middle age men and women who have a secure job and income. According to research done by the Jupiter Group online, young adults with age ranging from 18 to 34 spend on average 16 hours online per week versus 11 to 15 hours watching TV. This is a great opportunity for our online strategies since most of the young adults spend more time online than watching TV (WorldPress, 2007). In order to attract the attention of this population, the ad campaign will consists of medium rectangle box ads to be placed on the side of a web page. This ad box will be made in such a way that it connects to a Facebook page. This part of the campaign focuses on the Facebook population since there is about 500 million people and 50 percent of Facebook users are in the ages ranging between 18 and 35. By being able to reach users of Facebook, it can assist our company in achieving its objective. To make this rectangular side ads effective, it will be placed on a high traffic website that is related to sports or gambling. Based on recent studies done by Ranking.com, the most popular website is social networking sites that include Facebook, Twitter, My Space and other sites such as Google and Wikipedia (Facebook, 2011). By having the ads placed on these websites, there will be a higher chance of people seeing it. Moreover, we will also include a short clip of video in our campaign that contains the contest. This short 15 seconds video clip is made as an advertisement on YouTube. When YouTube users click on a video they want to watch, the short advertising clip will be played before the actual video the viewer wants to see takes time to load. Aside from the video and rectangular ads, the campaign also contains a large size banner that will also be placed on high traffic websites related to horse racing in some way.
Evaluation
We can start our evaluation by measuring the number of people that have entered our contest. This can be measured through the number of clicks of our box and banner ads. It can also be measured through the number of people on our Facebook Group that are interested and the number of views on our youtube video. Since our Facebook Group is highly interactive, we are able to learn what our customers are looking for and what their opinions are on the subject, so that we can incorporate their views and provide for them as necessary.
Based on this information, we can attain a general idea of how many people and what kind of people are interested in our advertisements. This makes it easier for us to further target these individuals through personalized messages in the future. by evaluating our startegies and tactics combining with the key indicators, it allows us to determine whether or not our strategies have been affective. If not, we have an opportunity to change our marketing strategies to further achieve our goal.
“ONTrack Media & Entertainment provides innovative entertainment solutions through quality production, repackaging, repurposing and licensing of horse racing content, which assists our racing customers in maximizing the value of their digital assets while ensuring the best in-stadium/at-home entertainment experience for the betting public” (Telephoto, 2008).
Company Background
ONTrack media and entertainment is North America’s leader in premier multinational, multimedia sports and Entertainment Company which specializes in horse racing. ONTrack has over 60 years of excellence in the horse racing industry, with portfolio of racing assets including Telephoto, ONTrack 365 and ONTrack Network. Our company services have produced over 33,000 in live horse racing game, and has provided over 10,000 photo finishes of 25% of horse race in North America (OnTrack Network).
As of August 2010, ONTrack Media and Entertainment ONTrack purchased the assets of Telephoto, which was a court ordered and managed receivership process of Telephoto Technologies Inc. and includes the purchase of customer contracts, intellectual property, television production equipment, network operations infrastructure, and other assets. Newly promoted Chief Operating Officer, Lana Taylor noted, “We are excited about the prospects going forward, especially in the Media division as we continue to grow advertising revenues over the ONTrack Network and share them with our track members.” Our headquarters are currently located in Mississauga, Ontario and is networked to hundreds of horse tracks across North America (Standardbred-Canada).
Currently our target market reflects most of upper-middle class and middle-aged citizens living in Canada and US, who builds on common interest of the horse racing industry (OnTrack Network). We hope through this community, we can make a better opportunity for better customer relations and potential future clients. Our services include TV production, VIP race graphic, OTB in a box, Video streaming, Ephoto, video replay; with TV production being our primary revenue, prices range from $ 2000 – 3000 an hour for on-air time (Telephoto).
In 2011, we are currently developing a marketing scheme which helps us develop our customer relations, as well as developing a broader market. Our plan is to use the advantages for current technology and social networking to better our existing client and potential client. Furthermore, is the incorporation for better participation through the uses of these social networks, interactive brochures, Youtube promotion video, and blogging. Finally, is the uses of peer-to-peer community and predictive modeling to help us develop this new relationship with our customers and hope to create a better image for all our clients. These include the incorporation of viral marketing, online community forums, blogging, surveying and a rating scheme. This new scheme will not only reflect on the development of our own business, but benefits the horse racing industry as a whole.
Strategic Analysis
Strengths
Since ONTrack is an advertising company itself, there are numerous strengths that the company can use to benefit from possible opportunities. For instance, ONTrack knows and understands the cost of advertising, which can provide the company with advantages in negotiating the budgeting strategies with existing and potential advertisers. Also, ONTrack is one of the well-recognized companies established in the industry that specialize in advertising horse race production. Therefore, this makes ONTrack more trustworthy and compelling from clients’ point of view. This will ultimately help increase the value of the advertisement campaign. Consequently, when the audiences see the advertisement campaign, they will be more likely to click on the advertisement. These strengths will minimize the impact of threats such as false advertising and spams that are found on many websites.
Weakness
In order to generate new and improved marketing strategies for the company to advance further, it is necessary for the company to recognize its weaknesses. The weaknesses associated with our company would be that our website is completely old style with absolutely no interaction, hence it is just a one-way communication website which makes it boring and it doesn’t appeal to customers. Also, there is no system of feedback provided. This makes it harder for us to infer what the customers’ value most and what exactly they might be interested in. Another weakness is that there is no other way to reach potential customers. There is a market constraint due to the slow adaptation of new technological platform. However, recognizing weaknesses of our company and knowing them alone is not good enough.
ONTrack is an advertising company that advertises for other companies using traditional advertising where viewers perceive advertisement in limited places such as television on the racetrack and sport bars. As a result, this becomes a weakness for the company. However, many young adults in the present days primarily spend most of their time on the Internet. It will take some time for the company to cope with online advertising since the company has depended on traditional advertising in the past years. In order to ensure the company’s weakness will not be prevented from opportunities, the advertising campaign will help the company gain its reputation on the Internet platform through demonstrating that the company can also successfully advertise online by incorporating multimedia advertisements.
Opportunities
Another essential thing we need to realize is the company’s opportunities.It is difficult to catch an opportunity when it strikes without actually realizing that there is an opportunity available. Hence it is always important to be aware of the opportunities that arise. We came across a few opportunities for the ONTrack company. Firstly it is important to reach our potential customers by expanding our market by using the many different new mediums such as social networking, interactive websites, videos, applications for mobile devices, etc. By using such methods, it is easier to target the younger population as well, which is what we are looking at doing. By targeting a younger age group (20+), there are more chances of other companies like sporting companies, beer companies and the like to offer to put their advertisement on our ONTrack Nework. There are unlimited dynamic and static advertising opportunities that ONTrack has to offer for advertisers to interact with the audience. There are countless value-added opportunities for integrated campaigns that link on-air advertisements with other promotions such as contests, cross-promotions, sampling, SMS and events. These opportunities strengthens and compliments traditional media campaigns by delivering messages and integrated programs that keep advertisers’ products and services at the top of the mind in an environment that is highly engaging, and measurable as well as highly capable of integration. It is the best of all worlds.
Threats
For an advertising company like ONTrack, there could be threats that are inevitable. There are other advertising companies that we are competing with who are also trying to attract more viewers just like us. The advertising market is continually increasing, hence it is harder for us to be recognized amongst other large companies. Also, the horse racing industry is quite limited in Canada due to weather conditions and is a less popular sport as compared to others such as hockey or basketball.
Marketing Objective
The primary marketing objective of the company is to expand the current targeted market to the younger population in Canada in a one-year span. This includes the ability to reach a lower-income, less educated and yet easy to reach audience. Studies conducted by ONTrack show that approximately 55 percent of the college students are horse racing fans. In addition, college students take up 52 percent of the entire population. This shows that there is a significant potential for ONTrack to target these audiences. Subsequently, when the objective is achieved, the next goal is to reach the younger population in the US by the end of three-year duration. Thus far, the company focuses on advertisers that are interested in purchasing an advertising slot during the horse racing cycle. Further, the company only focuses on appealing the older population, people who are in their 30’s and older, as well as those who have additional income to wager horse racing for the past 50 years. Thus, this limits the company from extending to a wider range of audiences. Hence, the company is neglecting potential audience who are in the younger and middle age population ranging from 20 years old and above, which can be potentially into sport such as horse racing. By attracting the younger audiences to watch and acknowledge the ONTrack Network, the network will get more views. By increasing the number of viewers, the company can increase the price for advertisers to advertise on the network, thereby increasing our ROI (OnTrack Network, 2008).
S
Strategies and Tactics
In order to expand the current targeted market to the younger population in both Canada and US, the strategies that will be used to help achieve the company’s objective is to create an online advertising campaign in the form of contests to attract more people’s attention. The average age of ONTrack audience is usually middle age men and women who have a secure job and income. According to research done by the Jupiter Group online, young adults with age ranging from 18 to 34 spend on average 16 hours online per week versus 11 to 15 hours watching TV. This is a great opportunity for our online strategies since most of the young adults spend more time online than watching TV (WorldPress, 2007). In order to attract the attention of this population, the ad campaign will consists of medium rectangle box ads to be placed on the side of a web page. This ad box will be made in such a way that it connects to a Facebook page. This part of the campaign focuses on the Facebook population since there is about 500 million people and 50 percent of Facebook users are in the ages ranging between 18 and 35. By being able to reach users of Facebook, it can assist our company in achieving its objective. To make this rectangular side ads effective, it will be placed on a high traffic website that is related to sports or gambling. Based on recent studies done by Ranking.com, the most popular website is social networking sites that include Facebook, Twitter, My Space and other sites such as Google and Wikipedia (Facebook, 2011). By having the ads placed on these websites, there will be a higher chance of people seeing it. Moreover, we will also include a short clip of video in our campaign that contains the contest. This short 15 seconds video clip is made as an advertisement on YouTube. When YouTube users click on a video they want to watch, the short advertising clip will be played before the actual video the viewer wants to see takes time to load. Aside from the video and rectangular ads, the campaign also contains a large size banner that will also be placed on high traffic websites related to horse racing in some way.
Evaluation
We can start our evaluation by measuring the number of people that have entered our contest. This can be measured through the number of clicks of our box and banner ads. It can also be measured through the number of people on our Facebook Group that are interested and the number of views on our youtube video. Since our Facebook Group is highly interactive, we are able to learn what our customers are looking for and what their opinions are on the subject, so that we can incorporate their views and provide for them as necessary.
Based on this information, we can attain a general idea of how many people and what kind of people are interested in our advertisements. This makes it easier for us to further target these individuals through personalized messages in the future. by evaluating our startegies and tactics combining with the key indicators, it allows us to determine whether or not our strategies have been affective. If not, we have an opportunity to change our marketing strategies to further achieve our goal.
References
1. "Telephoto Services." Telephoto. Telephoto, 2008. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://telephoto.ca/services.html>.
2. "Mission Statement." Telephot. Telephoto, 2010. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://telephoto.ca/mission_statement.html>.
3."ONTrack Purchases Assets Of TelePhoto."Standardbred Canada. Standardbred Canada, 2008. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://www.standardbredcanada.ca/news/8-25-10/ontrack-purchases-assets-telephoto.html>.
4. " Demographic profile of active horse racing fans (18+)." ONTrack Network. ONTrack Network, 2008. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://www.ontnetwork.com/demographics.html>.
5. "Marketing Green World Press." WorldPress, 03 03 2007. Web. 29 Mar 2011. <http://marketinggreen.wordpress.com/2007/03/03/green-marketers-need-to-target-consumers-where-they-spend-their-time-online/>
6. "Facebook." Facebook, 2011. Web. 27 Mar 2011. <http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics>.